Observations

By Daniel John Tasker

I draw from my love of world mythologies, history, and of course, poetry in an attempt to explore numerous topics ranging from political issues to existential struggles. I observe the world around me and try to interpret it in a unique way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Feb 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728384429

Daniel John Tasker

Musician and poet Daniel John Tasker hails from a small town called Ashton-under-Lyne in Northern England. Daniel draws inspiration from an eclectic mix of sources; from the classical poetry of William Blake and Alexander Pope, to punk poet John Cooper Clarke and lyricists Jim Morrison and Morrissey of The Smiths. Daniel is a fan of the ‘’B-Movie’’ sci-fi genre and the works of the late Stanley Kubrick. Daniel still resides in Northern England, with his cats Monty and Esther.

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Copyright © 2019 Daniel John Tasker. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   02/05/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8443-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-8442-9 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Octavian

I Must Be Mad

Perpetuity Kyrielle

Unrequited

Tartarus or Zion

To Patient Friends

A Decidedly Odd World

Lost

Departure

Dipsomania

Cyclical

Strangers

Ergo Sum

Beyond Flesh

Introspection

Shelley’s Heart

Snow White

Legacies

Jewel of the Orient

The First Cobble

Calypso

Zephyr

The Snail

Josephus

Ahura Mazda

Angra Mainyu

Fidus Achates

In the Maze

Ode to the Odious No More

At Ease

Tetrad

Mendacity Enshrined

Incandescence

The Faces

Or

My Kind

The Symposium’s All Over

Deep Water

Standards

Flies against Infinity

Blissful Blindfold

Bacchus versus Venus

Cupid’s Bridges

Warrior

Jörmungand

Senseless

Ephemeral

K. B. (Kinetic Bombardment)

To the Alienated

That Lad within My Glass

Like Citadels Of Shadow

Inmates

Straggler

Mimes / Till Then

Barmecide

The Satyr Sees

Dark Weltanschauung / Juvenility

Unleashed

D. D. D

Diogenes

Blank Canvas

Serendipity

Bumba

Lest

Ultimatum

To Stay Inspired

Abundans Cautela Non Nocet

Pax

It Has Come to the Triarii

Atlas

She Must Be Singing

To Myself

Hunting Muses

Primordial Soup

The Other Eye

Solstice

Gaugemela

To Question

Leuctra

Solvitur Ambulando

Another City

When The Flames Die

The Square

The Rhyme

Brotherhoods

Falcon

Ignis Aurum Probat

Caritas

Red Thread Sestina

The Screaming Sky

The Shrieking Sea

The Singing Soil

It Is

Octavian

What fate befell the despot’s boy,

with steel lining every vein,

whose vengeful heart fluoresced with joy

when traitors’ cruor caked the plain

outside the walls of Philippi,

which opened like a carmine flower?

Indeed, an angel’s damned to die

below the fiend’s pursuit of power.

The waves of Actium ran red.

An asp dispatched his fetching foe,

but come the end, amongst the dead …

asleep, lay lambent Cicero.

He stands atop the central hill,

with ichor pumping from his breast,

A thousand worlds bound to his will,

In robes of dreadful purple dressed.

Behold Augustus! Princeps paid

with humble knees and timid lips.

The lustre of each accolade

bedimmed below his cruel eclipse.

Akin to Romulus, who built

his realm upon the crime of Cain,

the sting of sanguinary guilt

embedded in his storied reign.

I Must Be Mad

A dearth of faith have I

In the chimerical notion of a soul.

Believe I do in the capabilities of men

To work beneath the clock

For good or ill.

In the former,

Through my filth,

Much faith I have.

Perpetuity Kyrielle

Deceivers wielding trenched tongues

Immortalised in satin songs,

Whilst blameless blood caresses gold,

The same perturbing tale told.

Between tricked tribes, red lines are drawn

By archons selling senseless scorn

To serfs enchained to doctrines old,

The same perturbing tale told.

The vastness of our barricade

And calls to splendorous crusade

Dissuade the cur and spur the bold,

The same perturbing tale told.

Commemoration sewn to shame,

Like Marcos’s Manilan flame,

Which ewes are honoured to behold,

The same perturbing tale told.

Betrothed are placid Pax and Mars,

In realms where helms obscure the scars

Of psyches trapped in caverns cold,

The same perturbing tale told.

It’s shrinking still, the needle’s eye,

As misers praise man’s battle cry,

And see their ashen clash unfold,

The same perturbing tale told.

Beyond the seas of human herds,

Each mimicking their masters’ words,

A seeker by no scripts controlled,

A story by the hopeful told.

Unrequited

Expelled can’t be these feelings.

From lust we’re never free.

Akin to hellish dealings,

We pay a weighty fee

To doleful souls rejected,

Whom Cupid’s volleys missed.

May you soon be resurrected

And by fair Dryads kissed.

Tartarus or Zion

As black as anthropodermic bibliopegy

Can be,

This drifter’s disposition—

Acting of his own volition,

With the daily acquisition

Of his catastrophic key.

‘See existence razed!’ he cries.

‘Set my phantom free!’

Wrestling with the hatred,

Loathing moments.

‘Love is sacred.’

So sayeth the proponents of

Rose-tinted points of view.